Even in this moonless darkness the undergrowth posed no problem, not simply because of his faerie eyes, but because he’d been here many times before—now tonight, at last, he could act on his desires. He navigated past the twisted mangrove roots, stepping over them and shallow puddles with ease and in silence.
As he drew closer, the distant lights from Danii’s house seemed to tease him, flickering through the curtains of leaves and trunks.
He stood in the shadows just beyond her fence. The heavy perfume of jasmine blossoms hung in the air.
The formalities needed to be observed. First, he needed to get her to allow him into her dwelling. He smiled. Before the kiss at the lake he’d not been as certain of her desires, but having touched her, he knew her more intimately. It was what she wanted, whether she realized this yet, or not. He’d enjoy seducing her and teaching her the darker facets of lovemaking.
He watched as she sat on the porch of her house, then lay back on the sofa and gulped at a drink. Though he’d seen her drink as much on other occasions, he couldn’t help frowning. A light breeze stirred the hem of her little dress now and then, lifting it, displaying the smoothness of her upper thighs and sometimes a glimpse of the summit, where her legs met. A white scrap of cloth showed there. He’d never allowed his chosen to hide themselves with underwear. If he bound her tight and put his tongue there, she’d be squealing in seconds.
With a practiced gesture, Heketoro conjured up the toah egg, then shielded the blue glimmer from view. Last of all, he needed to get her to allow him to insert this inside her. It wasn’t a minor invasion, yet without this egg, he would never have enough power to destroy the curse.
He could do with a little help. He sighed. Getting her to keep the egg would be difficult.
The hundred years of his sentence on this world had passed in agonizing slowness, and yet here he was, at the very end, and he and his half sister would die if he didn’t find the answer. In the first fifty years, he’d tried so many times, and all of them aborted. Only now, with the ascendance of new sexual attitudes among humans, had he been spurred to again search for a likely candidate. Fear of hurting Danii had held him back. Yet by doing nothing, he would kill his half sister. A pity time had caught up with him—three days was all he had left.
As well as being an energy sink for sexual magic, given enough time, the egg would help her find her true self. And now, to find out if he were right about her nature.
* * *
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Danii frowned. Had the breeze sent a branch knocking against the corrugated iron roof? Possums sometimes walked about up there, using it as a convenient mating and fight arena. She sat up a little and looked about. From the gloom, where steps led up to the far end of the porch, a man came forward.
Heketoro.
Every groove and rugged sweep of the bones and muscles of his face came bright and fresh to her mind. How could she have ever thought him a figment of her imagination? He halted at the bottom of the porch steps, large hands resting easily by his side, garbed in a loose black shirt and slick black trousers tucked into black boots. A question in his eyes made the breath stop in her throat.
She sent the scotch glass tumbling across the pillow. One hand on the armrest, she vaulted sideways across it and out of the lounge, to land lightly on her feet before the door. She yanked it open and stopped. The door surged slowly shut on its closer. He hadn’t moved.
Most telling of all, Killer stood before him, wagging his little ass off.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
If she could rely on anything in this world, even more than the sun rising in the morning or the free community newspaper being stuck in the rosebush every second Saturday, it was Killer’s instinct to measure up the bad guys. He never growled at friends and always at her direst enemies. Even ones she didn’t know she had.
She hesitated, torn between backing away slowly and opening the door so she could retreat into the house, or staying here and finding out why this man, this extraordinary man, had turned up at her back door. It was night time, she’d definitely not invited him, and he was over six feet. Karate only got a woman so far when it came to being outweighed, especially if the man knew how to handle himself. Heketoro radiated so much self-assurance she doubted an earthquake would faze him.
Yet Killer’s behavior said stay, and so did her seventh sense. Her sixth sense she reserved for picking horses at the races. She had an uncanny knack herself for figuring out the bad guys at work. Plenty had tried to pull the wool over her eyes, and none had succeeded, at least none she knew of. Her mother had once called it the family trait.
She forced herself to speak. “This is my back door, not the front. You are trespassing. Might be best if you left.”
At that, he looked up.
“Would you like me to leave?”
“Would I—How did you find me? How’d you get here?”
Why the back door, for heaven’s sake? That accent—she couldn’t place it. Maybe he was Armenian or something, where the back door was the norm? No. She was making excuses just because she wanted to—
With every beat of blood in her veins she felt a throb between her legs. He was ten feet away. God. How I’d like to fuck him. Maybe it was the scotch. Must be the scotch, she never responded like this to someone’s mere presence, to the scent of them, and the movement of their body. His lips on mine. Hands around my waist. Tongue in my mouth. She forced her breathing to slow.
“I walked. From the lake. I have seen you come this way, running,” he said. “Perhaps I should go.”
It was one and a half miles from the lake, and she did jog there sometimes along the timber walkway that skirted the mangroves.
“No,” she blurted and took a step toward him, the timber cold under her bare feet. Why had she done that?
“May I enter your house then?”
She blinked. Polite, anyway. Definitely foreign. How many times in my life have I ever felt what I felt when he kissed me? Just a kiss. What the hell would it be like if I let him do more than that?
He waited at the step—hadn’t moved an inch. Impassive. Powerful. Obedient. She smiled despite the pounding of her heart and moved even closer.
What difference was there between this man and others she’d met at night clubs and brought home? No more dangerous, surely? A little more exotic, perhaps, and that was all. At least this time she was sober, or mostly so.
The air grew stifling, the world shrank inward, her eyes widening, nostrils flaring—it was as if he possessed a net of seduction, as if lust was a tangible thing, drifting through the air and laying heated atoms of itself upon her body, her skin, her lips, her groin. She swayed.
“Wait there,” she said huskily.
She picked up the fallen glass, went back inside the house and put the glass down on the steel draining board at the sink, then planted both hands on the kitchen bench and took three deep breaths.
“You sure about this, girl?” she muttered. He wasn't here for a cup of tea.
He was still there when she went outside. She walked to him, trying to keep her breathing steady, and halted at the top of the stairs. The air ruffled the hem of her dress. She was wearing white cotton panties and felt the coolness at the apex of her legs, caressing her mons, shaping the cloth to her, invading her cleft. Her clitoris swelled as if he’d reached out and touched her.
“You want permission to…enter?” She licked her lips. There was something different about him—subtle though it was. The little serpentine tattoo seemed to curl farther down his temple, his cheekbones seemed more prominent, his chest was broader by the slightest amount.
He nodded.
With her tongue resting on her upper lip, she considered what to do. He waited, no denying that.
This was the man in her dreams—she’d seen him fifty, a hundred times and he’d done unspeakable things to her. Things that had made her cry out in pleasure. The next morning she’d been somewhat ashamed of even dream
ing such things. This wasn’t him. That would be surreal. But he was so similar, it was indistinguishable. Held close inside, in a hidden compartment of her darkest fantasies, she wondered what it would be like to lie with a man and let him do what he willed to her. Concealed beneath even those thoughts swam a desire she barely let herself glimpse—she didn’t just wonder…she hoped and wanted.
Life itself was a risk.
“Yes, Heketoro.” Now, what would he do? Her eyes narrowed. “Come up and—”
He took the first step, and she noticed the width of his thigh; then he was beside her. Though she moved to retreat, he placed a fingertip on her brow and slowly traced down her face, cheekbone to lip to chin, then down her neck as if he penciled her into existence, over the swell of breast to her nipple—at that she half closed her eyes—then down across her stomach to dip into her navel, round her hip to rest with his warm hand cupping her bottom. His fingertips curved in to rest along the split of her ass, with one fingertip almost grazing her anus through the thin cotton.
He took his hand away, and she nearly cried out for him to put it back.
“Who are you? Really?” she murmured.
“Heketoro.” He put one finger flat across her lips. “Do not speak unless I ask you. Stay.” Where his finger had stroked, her lips tingled as if burned. He circled round her, studying her body.
She trembled. This was ridiculous, intolerable…and yet, she did not want to move. After all, past experience said it might be worthwhile. She could always disobey these orders if she wished to.
“Take off your clothes.”
Oh, my. Here? With the light on? Outside, where someone looking over their fence could see? She didn’t say it out loud, though she thought it, and flashed him a fiery look from beneath her brows. He said nothing more. Her breaths came faster, deeper. She could refuse. “No. Not here. Not with the light on.”
The light dimmed and went out. He’d not pressed the switch, surely? How?
“Have you never wondered,” he said, from the darkness. “What it would be like to merely obey?”
The three days of obedience. He’d not forgotten them, and neither had she. To merely obey.
His hand clasped the back of her neck, holding her still, gentle yet firm.
“Because,” he murmured at her ear, hot breath sifting through her hair. Lips parting, she leaned back into his hand. “This is where it may begin, or not. The question is, whether you want it to.” He released her, stepped to the side and watched.
To do whatever he asked her. Simply imagining the consequences drove her excitement to another level.
Shivering she reached down to the hem, crossed her arms, and pulled the dress over her head, then dropped it to the floor, the cloth whispering as it fell.
“Good,” he said. “All of it.”
Oh. That made her falter again. Then she slowly reached back and undid the clasp of her bra and felt the slight jolt in her breasts. The straps slid down her arms, her nipples hardened in the night air. She hesitated at the thought of removing her panties—knowing already her cleft was swollen and wet. Embarrassed strangely, before this man who made her feel more than she had ever thought she could.
As if he read her thoughts, Heketoro smiled and swiveled his finger, instructing her to turn around. When she did so he came closer—his body against hers, the length of his cock pressing up her back. He nuzzled her neck, ran a hand down her thigh, and she groaned, shoving her buttocks back against him, wanting him inside her.
He smoothed his hand across her belly and dipped inside her panties, his fingers combing through her pubic hair. She shifted, spreading her legs a little. Those thick, warm fingers slid between her thighs, among her slick wetness, to press against her slit. He slipped one finger inside her—no more than a half inch, then out again, and when it pushed in again, another finger slid in alongside. She felt the walls of her cunt pulse and put her hands back to pull him closer, torn between wanting his cock grinding against her and the exquisite waves racking her from his fingers and the pressure of the heel of his hand.
“Please,” she choked out.
He kissed her neck, biting it here and there—his teeth so gentle. “These too.” He tugged at her panties.
“Uh-uh.” Her tongue slipped out, wet her lips and stayed there. She didn’t open her eyes. This was her one denial. Surely he’d understand? Even if the lights were off, she couldn’t bear the possibility of her neighbors watching. “Inside. Not here.”
“I won’t force you. Yet you agreed to do as I bid you. By the end of the three days, you will obey me—because you want to.”
The arrogance of his words wrenched her back to reality, to the fact she was standing on her porch writhing against a strange man, naked except for a scrap of cloth. She pulled away, only to find her left wrist still caught in his hand. She glared at him.
Ah, but that only brought her up against the indisputable fact, he was simply the most gorgeous man. Too thin? Why had she thought that? As she surveyed him, amusement blossomed in the depths of his eyes. His hold on her wrist didn’t lessen, and she didn’t try to struggle anymore—that small amount of control he possessed exhilarated her in some curious way.
“Come then,” he said. “Inside.”
A bare second of hesitation. What was she getting herself into? But she followed, staggering a bit, as he walked over, opened the screen door and towed her into the house. Killer trotted in after them before the screen door flapped shut. Heketoro let her go and shut the gray-painted back door—a firm click as the latch caught, then they were alone in her little house.
The Indonesian hallway runner stretched from front to back door, rooms leading off to either side. The absurdity of the situation struck her, and she could only stand there, feeling awkward, exposed, and far more vulnerable than she had outside in the open air. She clenched and unclenched her fists, unsure what to say, torn between rushing off to grab some clothes and, well, telling him to leave. And while those thoughts churned through her, Heketoro stood like some incarnation of a warrior from ancient times—impassive, solid as carved stone, and with a bulge in his trousers that brought the blood to her cheeks and her moist tongue to the roof of her mouth. His eyes flickered. “You’re thinking of asking me to leave…but you won’t.”
Her eyes widened. That arrogance again, as though he knew her better than she knew herself.
“Um.” She backed away. Her shoulders bumped against the wall, and she sidled to the entrance of her bedroom.
“I have to get…something.” Why did she always find it so difficult to say the word condom? He inclined his head.
She slipped into her room, her hand going to her chest as if she could settle the erratic heartbeat. She shut her eyes, unsure if she was hiding in here, or what. At the clubs, she always picked the less dominating men, and now, out there in her hallway, she had Heketoro, who seemed a force of nature.
Calm down. What the hell am I doing in here? Ah, yes.
She ripped open the bedside drawer and, with a shaking hand, snatched a condom from the box.
He hadn’t followed her in. God. It was clear he meant to have sex with her. Where then if not the bedroom? Did she have a choice? Feeling like a sparrow venturing out into a storm—a frighteningly new sensation—she walked back into the hall.
“Tell me your name,” he said, taking up as if she’d not left.
Startled, she realized she hadn’t told him. She swallowed. “Danii.”
“On your knees, Danii,” he said quietly, her name sounding foreign from his mouth, the syllables twisting oddly.
Oh. The moment cleaved her. From the second he’d arrived on the porch, she’d sensed, deep down, where this was going. She always held the reins, kept things under control. She’d known Heketoro was no ordinary man who’d acquiesce to her demands, yet…she didn’t know what to do. To obey or deny?
Her knees trembled. She saw herself backing away, but already her legs buckled, and she went to her knees befo
re him. The soft carpet rubbed against her skin. All of her quivered. What was she doing here, on her knees? She might as well serve herself up on a platter. And that very thought made her tremble even more. Her breathing roughened. Moisture welled up inside her, so much she could feel it run along the line of her labia and trickle onto her thigh.
I’m so wet. How could she, a tough-as-steel career cop, want to go belly-up before a man? This was dominance and submission, master-and-slave play. Only, it didn’t seem like a game.
Confusion welded her in place… All she knew was, looking up at Heketoro seemed right and fed some inner craving.
With both hands, he pulled the black shirt over his head, then undid a row of ivory buttons at the fly of his pants. His erection stood out like a pillar. Without taking his eyes off her, he slung the boots and then his trousers into a pile with his shirt.
She knew what he wanted, without words or gestures being used. The link between them was so potent she could taste him, feel her mouth settling over him and the slide of his cock going in and over her tongue. Her nipples ached, and her breasts grew heavy and swollen. But she couldn’t move, knowing she shouldn’t be doing this. He smiled a hard, unyielding smile. “Put your mouth on me.”
Her lips parted. The words broke down a barrier inside her—the last piece of her resistance vanished, and she let out a tremulous breath.
As she moved slowly forward on her knees, her breasts wobbled. She put her hands on the top of his thighs, reveling in the shift of hard muscle. Resting her cheek on his thigh, she turned her head to let her breath heat his erection, then smiled when Heketoro sucked in air sharply and his phallus twitched. She crept a hand closer, curving her palm under his balls. He sank one hand into the back of her hair, his fingers arching like claws across her scalp.
A bead of moisture squeezed from the tip of his cock. In one motion, she shifted, took the base of his cock in her hand and angled it down so she could take it into her mouth. Her lips molded around him, and he sighed as she let the length of him slip deep into her mouth nearly to the back of her throat.
Three Days of Dominance Page 3